Effect of nesiritide versus dobutamine on short-term outcomes in the treatment of patients with acutely decompensated heart failure

What Was Tested

Researchers studied BNP (Nesiritide) and ANP (Atrial Natriuretic Peptide) in this randomized controlled trial publication.

This study was designed to determine whether nesiritide, administered for acute decompensated congestive heart failure (CHF), affects healthcare costs by hospital length of stay (LOS), readmissions and short-term mortality, compared to dobutamine.

Why It Was Studied

Dobutamine is a commonly used inotropic treatment for CHF.

Who Took Part

The abstract describes 261 patients taking part.

The age groups tagged for this paper are middle-aged adults, older adults and people over 80, both men and women.

A total of 261 patients are included in this analysis.

How the Study Was Run

In design terms this was a randomized and open-label study.

Random assignment meant chance, not the researchers, decided who got BNP (Nesiritide) and who got the comparison, which limits bias.

Everyone knew when BNP (Nesiritide) was being given (open label), which is simpler to run but leaves more room for expectations to affect what is reported.

What Was Measured

PubMed files the paper under topics including Acute Disease, Atrial Natriuretic Factor, Cardiotonic Agents, Dobutamine, Health Care Costs, Heart Failure and Length of Stay.

What This Means in Plain Language

The paper is a randomized and open-label study of BNP (Nesiritide) and ANP (Atrial Natriuretic Peptide) in 261 patients.

Its findings take up roughly 4 sentences of the abstract and are left out here on purpose; the source paper is the place to read them.

The publication is from 2002 (Journal of the American College of Cardiology), a journal based in United States.

More context: the BNP (Nesiritide) compound page and the ANP (Atrial Natriuretic Peptide) compound page, all human trials.